Devoured
by Lynse
Summary: Vlad died in the proto-portal incident, but Jack and Maddie still think they see him, still feel his judgement, and still face his wrath. AU. One-shot. Warnings: Character death, gore, graphic descriptions of burning, fire, questionable grip on reality. High T-rating. For Invader Johnny.


A/N: Birthday request from Invader Johnny. Happy birthday! For everyone else, be warned this is not a pleasant read (neither was the detailed prompt, to be honest). **Warnings** : Character death, gore, graphic (ish) descriptions of burned flesh, lots of fire, and a downward spiral of mental states. Let me know if I need to warn about anything else. I took some inspiration from E. L. Chen's _The Good Brother,_ so be sure to check it out if you enjoy this! Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

Maddie jumped, certain she'd heard glass shatter behind her, but the lab equipment wasn't even cracked. She let out a shaky breath and turned back to the calculations in front of her. She was just jumpy. Imagining things. Jack would be here soon, and she wouldn't have to face this alone.

The words on the paper in front of her blurred into a smear of ink through her tears.

 _You did this_ , Vlad's voice whispered. _You did this to me._

Maddie shut her eyes, letting the tears fall. "It was an accident," she repeated. "It was an accident. We couldn't have done anything differently."

But if that were really the truth, she wouldn't be haunted by these thoughts. She wouldn't be seeing their old friend everywhere. Jack would be chipper, his usual self, instead of the solemn stranger that had taken his place. And she wouldn't feel this crushing guilt.

It had been an accident. A terrible accident, a deadly accident, but still an accident. The proto-portal shouldn't have exploded. She'd thought their calculations flawless. Vlad had double-checked them himself.

Maddie opened her eyes and nearly screamed when she saw Vlad in front of her, his usually-pristine lab coat still smouldering from the fire that had blackened his flesh. As she watched, more turned to ash. "You killed me," he accused, skin cracking and sloughing off as the words were forced from his mouth. The sight alone brought back the memory of that horrendous smell. She retched and might've lost her lunch if she'd had the appetite to eat it. Breathing through her mouth did little to negate the thick scent of burnt hair and melting flesh. Of charred flesh. Of death. "You killed me."

She jerked out of her seat as he pointed at her. "No," she insisted. "No, we didn't. It was an accident."

The words sounded hollow even to her own ears.

Vlad continued to stare at her, the accusation clear in his eyes.

She knew what would come next, and she closed her eyes on the sight, but that did nothing to stop her imagination. This was all in her head anyway. She couldn't so easily ignore something that wasn't actually there. This wasn't real.

She'd think he was a ghost if she didn't know better. Ghosts were nothing like this. This was wrong. This was a fiction, whereas a ghost would be tied to the horror that was the truth.

But the smell of death still filled her nostrils, and she could taste it, ash and cinders and the acrid bite of electricity over sharp chemicals—

"Mads? You okay?"

Maddie blinked, and Jack's face swam into focus. She realized she was curled up on the floor, hugging her knees and hiding under the workbench. She had no memory of moving.

She could taste bile in her mouth, but her clothes were mercifully unsoiled.

"I don't know if I'll ever be okay," she admitted as she took Jack's hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

He didn't argue with her, didn't try to comfort her.

She knew he wasn't sure, either.

* * *

They were lucky to have been given another lab space. They were lucky to still be allowed to attend the university. They were lucky to have survived.

Jack wasn't a fool.

He knew all that.

But without Vladdy by their side, it was hard to feel lucky at all.

It had been an accident. The proto-portal had malfunctioned. It wasn't something they could have predicted. There was no way of knowing if it was a miscalculation on their part, a fault in the wiring or overheated circuits or the wrong mix of stimulant chemicals or—

"Criminal negligence," came Vlad's voice. Jack could hear the sneer in it, something he'd rarely seen on Vlad's face. "Causing death. That's involuntary manslaughter. Negligent homicide."

Jack didn't bother turning around and instead hunched back over the frame of the new proto-portal. If he and Maddie could at least figure out what went wrong, they'd be able to prevent accidents like that from happening in the future. It would be an easier task if the blueprints hadn't gone up in smoke with everything else.

"Do you know how long you'll rot in prison for that?"

Jack flinched. The words stung, even though he knew it wasn't really Vlad who spoke them, that he was just imagining things. Mads had never said much, but he knew the nightmarish things she'd seen, and evil as ghosts were, they didn't do that. Not really. They couldn't. They were too tightly tied to the people they'd been on earth, especially so soon after death. Were Vlad really around as a ghost, he'd still be more of an echo than anything else.

A smart, clever friend wandering the remains of the laboratory, trying to complete their project all on his own.

Not _this_ , this taunting voice that came out of a mouth that smiled with too many teeth. That was his own overactive imagination. Misplaced guilt. It looked like Vlad from the corner of his eye simply because he wanted to see Vlad, to see him still here, _alive_ , with them. Because he didn't want to remember the explosion or the fire. Because he didn't want to remember fighting through the flames and already being too late. He didn't want to remember seeing Vlad's corpse. And he didn't want to remember making the choice to leave it behind to burn even more in favour of rescuing Maddie, who had been shaking so badly she could barely stand, let alone run.

It had all happened so fast.

There hadn't been any time.

If only Vladdy hadn't gone to examine the proto-portal right before it had exploded….

"Your life would be over before it really had a chance to begin," hissed Vlad. "You don't deserve anything better. Not after what you did to me."

This was all in his head. Trouble was, Jack couldn't easily ignore it. It did feel like the accident had been his fault, that he was responsible for the death of his best friend. And being here, trying to rebuild the proto-portal in an effort to figure out what went wrong and continue their work…. It felt like a betrayal.

He wanted to devote his life to ghost hunting, but did he really deserve to be happy after what he did? If he and Maddie got together—stayed together—and devoted their lives to this— Would it just make poor Vladdy a sacrifice? He had been an integral part of their team. Without him….

It felt _wrong_.

It felt like he should just destroy the new proto-portal, destroy their hastily scrawled notes, and forget about forcing open an entrance to the ghostly realm entirely. They would never be able to prove any of their ideas without it. Hypotheses would remain just that, and they'd probably remain the laughing stock of everyone in what was considered 'proper academia', but this project had already claimed one life.

What if it wasn't the last life this Ghost Zone tried to take from them, to claim in sacrifice in exchange for their knowledge? What if, in continuing their work, someone else got hurt? He couldn't lose Maddie, not like he'd lost Vlad. He couldn't forgive himself for what had happened to Vlad. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if the same happened to Maddie.

Something _snapped_ , and Jack's arm was thrown back into his chest. The wrench he was holding jabbed into his gut. The head of the bolt he'd been tightening lay on the floor, cleanly cleaved from the rest of the apparatus.

Just like Vlad had been cleaved from their lives.

Jack stared at it, feeling sick, and then he just dropped the wrench and got to his feet. He couldn't do this right now. He'd take a break. Go talk to Maddie. See what she thought about all this.

The room he passed through was empty but for him, but as he closed the door behind him, he heard screeching metal and a crash.

He didn't need to look back to know that the new proto-portal was in pieces again.

Just like their lives.

* * *

Their attempts to rebuild the proto-portal seemed cursed. Their notes kept getting destroyed, and she'd guess the prototype itself was being sabotaged if she didn't know better. How many times could screws strip and bolts break before it wasn't considered normal? Metal fatigue shouldn't set in so quickly on new material, just as carefully kept notes shouldn't wind up water-stained beyond readability or scorched or lost to the wind every time they were rewritten.

But there were perfectly natural reasons for all of that. Tempting as it might be to think the reasons distinctly supernatural, Maddie knew better than that. Even after a month, she still only slept when exhaustion finally claimed her. Most nights, she tried to work or read until she was too tired to keep her eyes open, but even that didn't shut out the waking visions her mind created. Vlad was there, always there, watching her. Leering as he never had in real life, making pointed comments about Jack, and accusing them both of murdering him.

She was getting more used to it now, those fleeting glimpses from the corner of her eye. Sometimes her mind reimagined him as she'd last seen him, a horror of flame-scorched flesh, but too often she just saw Vlad as he had been. Too often, her heart jumped, thinking he was still here after all, that the explosion, the fire, the accident, had all been a dream. That it hadn't happened.

As if anything could wipe the slate clean so easily.

Jack's steady hands closed over her shaking ones, taking the flask and graduated cylinder from her. He quickly measured out the correct amount, transferring it to the waiting beaker and setting it on the hot plate. She reached for the dirty glassware, intending to clean it, but he stopped her. "It can wait, Mads."

She took a shaky breath. "Can you see him, too?"

"He's not real," Jack said. "You know that."

"He's not real," she echoed dutifully, but there was doubt there—because Jack could see him, too. Surely. And if they could both see him, didn't that mean that Vlad _might_ have come back to haunt them? To get his revenge? Perhaps they were wrong; perhaps crossing over could twist people immediately into the darkest shadows of their human selves and it wasn't simply a result of decaying memory over time—

Maddie looked back to the corner of the room, but Vlad's apparition was gone. Or it had never been there in the first place.

She took a steadying breath. "He's not real," she repeated more forcefully. It was easier to believe with Jack there, with his warmth seeping into her fingers again. It seemed to chase away the chill left behind by Vlad's memory.

But sometimes, people weren't haunted by real ghosts.

Sometimes, they were haunted by memories.

By guilt.

And she feared that was the case now.

Vlad's ghost didn't need to haunt them if his memory—the memory of that day—never left them.

 _We'll get through this._ It was getting harder to believe that. _Somehow, we'll get through this._

* * *

Jack wiped sweaty hands on his pants and tried to remember the words that had just come out of his mouth. Had he even finished the last sentence? He couldn't remember. Swallowing, he gestured to the equation Maddie had written on the board before he'd begun. "So, as you can see, the, uh, mechanics of the…."

Flames were licking at the floor.

"The mechanics…."

He could feel their heat.

"The principles behind our proto-portal…."

The flames were growing higher, their heat more intense. It was hard to see the audience through the blaze of bright orange and dancing yellow. The crackling made it difficult to hear. He tried to project his voice before he lost it entirely; the smoke was already stinging his eyes.

"The purpose of the proto-portal is to prove that the realm of ghosts exists." Breathing seemed to scorch his throat. He fumbled for his water, found it, and drained the glass. It soothed his throat but did nothing for his watering eyes or the cough that was threatening to burst out of his chest. He lost that battle, doubling over. "Stop this, Vlad," he gasped, trying to draw a breath that didn't sear. _It's all in my head._ But he could see Vlad, standing with his arms crossed in the front row just beyond the wall of flames. "Stop it. Please."

If anything, it seemed to get worse.

"Stop it, Vladdy!" he bellowed, and then everything was gone—the smoke, the flames, the oppressive heat, the roar of the fire. Instead, he straightened to find himself facing wide eyes. Nervous faces. Carefully schooled expressions, and more than a handful that were much more transparent.

Vlad had ruined his presentation. Ruined his reputation, if the laughter starting in the back meant anything. Jack felt his face flush again, burning as hot as it had with the phantom fire.

Maddie wasn't here, off writing an exam in another class. She'd wished him luck before this, helped him set up, and bemoaned the fact that she couldn't be here with him—but part of him was glad she hadn't been. She would have supported him, she would have understood, but that would have meant she'd have seen this.

It would have meant she'd seen him break. Seen his mask stripped away. Seen the fact that Vlad—

That Vladdy—

That the ghost—

 _It's all in my head._

But it wasn't. It couldn't be. He could still taste the smoke on the back of his tongue. It was a wonder his clothes weren't coated in ash.

"This is better than you deserve, Jack," whispered Vlad. Jack jumped, twisting around. Vlad stood behind him, in his usual spotless lab coat. "This is far better than you deserve."

The heat in the room started to rise again, this time accompanied by a high whine. Vlad began to laugh, but it was wrong, distorted. Black started to spot at the edges of Jack's vision, and he couldn't remember—couldn't continue—

Jack ran.

Vlad's laughter followed him.

* * *

The knocking roused her from sleep, and Maddie realized she'd dropped off at her desk again. Rubbing at her sore neck with one hand, she smoothed down her hair with the other and looked through the peephole.

Vlad stood on the other side.

She screamed, jerking back, and Jack's voice called, "Maddie? What's wrong?"

Her heart pounded in her chest, and she tried to take a few steadying breaths as she undid the lock. "It's nothing," she said when she pulled open the door. Jack didn't believe her, of course. He shouldn't. It was a lie. It was never nothing. It was always Vlad. He knew that. It would always be Vlad.

"Did you still want to go grab something to eat?"

She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. She'd had no time for it, too busy going over their work yet again. Even her dreams were filled with equations, always changing, because it seemed like whenever she looked away, they'd been changed. She wasn't sure if it was sleep deprivation or…or Vlad.

"I should," she replied. She didn't feel hungry now, but one whiff of food would surely change that. "We should. It would be nice." It would be normal. It would be a break.

They wouldn't chance a restaurant, not after last time. Last time had ended in hysterics, smashed plates, and a much larger bill than either of them could rightly afford. But most people didn't have to watch flame consume their food, turning it to charcoal before leaping to them—burning, blistering, and refusing to be put out with water.

The phantom pain of the burns had lasted long past the time they'd realized their clothes were undamaged, that there had been no smoke alarm nor sprinklers nor panic on anyone else's part.

She'd always thought this would pass, this phase. That time would temper the guilt and therefore the hallucinations. She hadn't expected it to get worse, but it did. She flinched whenever she caught sight of Vlad now because his presence meant trouble.

Jack had failed his presentation.

She'd run out before finishing her test, chased by smothering smoke, barely scraping a passing grade with what she had completed.

They'd been accused of tampering with other students' work, of stealing notes and manipulating written equations.

Incidents of arson had jumped, always places they'd been, following them, springing up once they'd left but never with enough time between to kill the suspicion in everyone's eyes. The police had questioned them more than once. She wasn't sure the officers believed their story, but they'd never been taken in. Not yet. The police didn't have anything substantial.

The university had served them a warning. Not because of that, not officially, but now their research was considered dangerous and the university was not equipped with the proper facilities to safely carry it out. They were free to continue with theoretical equations but were forbidden from testing them, from building any more prototypes—or working the labs and accessing any chemicals, many of which had gone missing from the labs in which they'd worked. Nothing had been caught on camera. No charges had been laid. But everyone whispered with surety that it was them.

Any sympathy people had had had been eaten away, devoured by suspicion as surely as the fire that had devoured Vlad had devoured them, too. Devoured their lives. They had never been duly respected, per se, but there had never been outright animosity. Not until now. People had never glared at them, left the room simply because they'd entered it, or spoken in too-loud whispers that were clearly meant to be overheard. There had never been open laughter at their expense, no hurtful nicknames or taunts, no joking calls of which lab, which classroom, they should burn down next.

She was certain it was Vlad, that it was all Vlad, but no one would believe her if she said that. No one but Jack, and Jack wasn't the one she needed to convince.

They stopped at a café first—she usually wasn't one to rely on caffeine, but she'd found herself needing it as of late—and she nibbled on a cinnamon roll while waiting for her latte. She smiled when Jack handed it to her, but almost as soon as it was within her grasp, it began to burn. She dropped it with a screech, trying to pat out the flames licking at her sleeve. It was a few seconds before she realized how far the hot liquid had spread, splashing up her pants and arching out from the main puddle at her feet.

She couldn't see Vlad, but she knew it was his work.

She looked to Jack for reassurance, but he was frowning at her. He looked worried, concerned, not understanding. The realization washed her insides with ice. He hadn't seen the fire, hadn't felt its heat. She wanted to blame Vlad, but if the illusions were no longer shared….

If the illusions were no longer shared, maybe they never really had been. Maybe it really was all in her head. She hadn't been completely honest about everything she saw and felt when she went to the grief counsellor after Vlad's death; she'd never asked, but she doubted Jack had told the entire truth, either. Neither of them had wanted their mental health called into question after this, not when that would potentially mean losing permission to conduct their research unsupervised. Not when they thought they'd be able to control this, whatever this was.

But control had been slipping farther and farther from their grasp with each passing day, and they'd lost the right to continue their research anyway.

Keeping it a secret had been a mistake.

That had given it power. Over her, over both of them. Given the power to Vlad. Even if he wasn't really here.

The smell of death, of fire and charred flesh, filled her nostrils. She retched, this time bringing up the little she'd eaten. Jack was there, shoving something under her mouth and scrambling to keep her hair back, but it was too late. The rest were dry heaves, even though the smell—

Maddie raised her eyes. Vlad's blackened corpse stood in front of her, devoid of his usual recognizable features—hair gone, skin falling off in sheets, eye sockets empty, all black and white and red. "You brought this on yourself," it hissed with Vlad's voice. She thought she saw bone beneath the black. "You killed me."

They had.

And they'd never be allowed to forget it.

* * *

The day Jack was expelled, he finally saw it happen. This time, Vlad didn't wait till he'd gone. This time, he held a flaming hand to the books in the library until they caught. Jack ran to him, begging for his friend to stop, but Vlad merely held another burning hand to the next set of stacks. He wouldn't stop.

Jack hadn't known the curling smoke or flickering flames were real until he heard shouts from others in the library. The fire was spreading fast, so Jack turned to run, knowing he had to get the fire extinguisher before Vlad let the flames spread any more. The alarms and sprinklers started before he reached the end of the aisle.

The librarian wasn't the only one who saw him fleeing. There were a number of students who swore that they'd seen him coming from the scene of the crime, that no one else had been perusing that particular section. They said as much to the police.

"It wasn't me," insisted Jack as the search began. He was soaked, and his clothes stunk of the damning smoke. "It wasn't. It was Vlad. _He_ did this." But his backpack yielded a lighter that hadn't been there before, along with more than one bottle of stolen chemicals that could be used as accelerants. Matches were found in Maddie's locker, alongside scrawled plans in her notebook.

"We were set up," he babbled. "It was Vladdy. It was his ghost."

They didn't believe him, of course.

No one did.

He was hauled off campus in disgrace, read his rights before being shoved into a police car. He knew another set of officers had gone in search of Maddie, but he hadn't caught a glimpse of her before leaving. He couldn't warn her to run. He didn't see her later, in the prison, or after that, when the psych eval had been ordered, but he knew from what they said that she was here.

And that she was saying the same as he was.

The only truth they had.

"Ghosts are real," he said in earnest. "They're evil." It was the truth, one he'd denied too long in light of his friendship with Vlad. "All of them. This was Vlad. Vlad Masters. Not me."

The redheaded woman sitting across from him raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her glasses but didn't comment.

Jack didn't need to wait for the trial to know what his assigned lawyer would argue, nor what the outcome would ultimately be.

He had already lost.

 _You don't deserve anything better. Not after what you did to me._

Jack didn't look around. He didn't know if Vlad was here or not. He wasn't sure if the words had been spoken aloud or if they were another echo. It no longer mattered.

Nothing did.

* * *

Vlad let the flames dance across his fingertips, taking comfort in their raw power. It might have only been a few months, but this had taken entirely too long. The bumbling buffoon that was Jack Fenton had had this coming. Maddie, lovely Maddie, was no better. Her misplaced affections had meant he couldn't spare her.

It was satisfying to know neither of them would be leaving the walls of the psychiatric facility for quite some time.

He didn't even need to stick around to see them suffer. His work had already come to fruition. They had gotten the justice they deserved, and he was finally free.

Vlad clenched his hand into a fist. The flames were instantly snuffed out. A moment later, he let his essence scatter, too.


End file.
